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Is airline and airport safety important to you?

If you’re like most baby boomers, you love to travel. And, when you travel, it’s likely you’ll be getting on an airplane.

Have you taken the time to find out about airline performance, which airlines are the safest, and what airports are considered the most dangerous?

Recently I wrote about these topics. I was surprised to find out how difficult it is to gather this information and startled about many of the things I learned.

Airline performance

When I began blogging last year, I wrote about how airlines as a group performed in 2007. Consumer Reports had summarized the data airlines are required to report to the U.S. Department of Transportation. I quoted a few highlights from the article and linked to it.

I learned airline performance for the 19 largest airlines that report information to the department for items such as on-time performance, mishandled baggage, bumping, complaints about airline service, and complaints about treatment of disabled passengers all improved slightly. Complaints on discrimination, however, were up 16.2 percent.

But I learned that airline performance improved due to flight cutbacks caused by fuel prices, the economic downturn, and the decline in passenger traffic. It’s expected airline performance will decline again when air travel picks up and airports and flights become more crowded.

Performance of individual airlines

I travel several times a year to see my family. About two years ago, I switched from Alaska Airlines to American Airlines because American usually had lower prices and more schedule choices. My next flight to Miami is on American.

The report card is based on government statistics, press reports, airline website data, FlyersRights hotline reports, and eye witness accounts provided by the group’s coalition members for the period from January 2008 through December 2008. (Click on 2008 Report Card on the left side of the Web page under “Events” to find the pdf report.)

In the report, FlyersRights gave American, along with four other airlines, the grade of “F” for tarmac delays of four-plus hours. Alaska and four other airlines received an “A.”

Safest airlines

Here’s where the research became even more complicated.

Neither the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, a part of the department’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration, nor the department’s Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings provides a list of the safest airlines.

The bureau collects information from the airlines about performance and the Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings writes reports based on the data.

In its analysis, LiveScience.com ranked Southwest Airlines second with 2.59 accidents, a yearly average from January 1,2002 to Jan. 1, 2007. I had seen Southwest rated highly in other listings. I thought I might switch to it.

I was alarmed to see American Airlines with a high number of crashes in which fatalities occurred on another list. However, I learned later that American is the largest airline in the United States. That list didn’t factor in how many flights or air miles the airlines had.

Safest and most dangerous airports

Again, airport safety proved to be a challenging research task. No government listings.

I found a 2007 analysis of airports by the editors of Forbes.com that I linked to.

The article stated:

Since 2001, 108 travelers have died in ground collisions involving commercial airlines.

Many of the deaths that occurred in ground collisions were at highly congested airports.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..